


A Season Of Notus

by cassandra_leeds (The_Circadian)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angel Vessel Consent Issues (Supernatural), Angel Vessels (Supernatural), Angst, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-12
Updated: 2020-10-12
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:06:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26964151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Circadian/pseuds/cassandra_leeds
Summary: After Castiel's unexplained and sudden departure, Sam is left to pick up the pieces with a man he doesn't know.Spoilers through 4x20, character reveal.Posted originally on LiveJournal long ago.
Relationships: Castiel/Sam Winchester, Jimmy Novak/Sam Winchester
Comments: 8
Kudos: 27





	A Season Of Notus

The wind presses them steadily towards each other, the sky above a sweep of uneven and ever changing gray.

They don’t say their names or the names of the dead or the names of those who are alive in the living world or those who have passed in and out of bodies as light or smoke. Sam doesn’t say Castiel’s name. He can’t seem to form it on his tongue anymore. It’s an unreal title now, with the one beside him. Same face, but not. Same voice, but not. Eyes piercing and blue, but human in depth now. He can’t say this new name either, unless he absolutely has to.

He holds the wheel with one hand and opens his window, lets the wind pour in and out, push into his hair and around him. He looks over to where this man with the well known body sits resolute in the passenger seat as if willing the turns on the road not to sway him. He holds himself like the wind doesn’t touch him at all. Like he refuses to feel it.

Sam doesn’t say where they’re going. Jimmy is beyond asking for explanations anymore and Sam finds himself often beyond words, so they’re safe in that way. It’s safe, the way it balances.

Sam can tell Jimmy senses that there is something more to the story than he’s been told. For weeks he’s noticed that Jimmy watches Sam’s hands when Sam thoughtlessly touches him longer than is necessary. He sees that Jimmy recognizes that his body and Sam’s have known each other in a closer way than he can recall. Though Sam can tell there is no memory there in the way Jimmy’s eyes flash with confusion. But Jimmy doesn’t ask. He doesn’t say anything. They don’t ask each other about things like that. They don’t say names.

Jimmy quietly starts following in the shadow dance after a while and begins to lean into the touches Sam lays on him in passing and relaxes when Sam stares. Sam isn’t sure whether to be grateful, but he takes it.

The wind is blowing them towards the cabin, blowing the Impala’s doors closed, smell of trees and fresh air making this all seem too good, too romantic. The wooden steps are well worn under their shoes.

Sam picks the lock and Jimmy stands beside him and waits. The door opens with a soft click and Sam steps in. He finds the switch and the room glows with soft light. Jimmy follows him inside.

Sam shuts the door behind him quieter than he opened it.

The cabin is fully furnished, someone’s rich vacation spot in the redwoods. Country styled and feminine - Battenberg lace bedspreads and frilly curtains in contrast to the warm deep wood of the walls. Jimmy walks around the cabin slowly and Sam tries not to watch him. It’s hard not to though. This is all feeling like a first time and simultaneously like an echo. It’s virginal and well worn all at once.

Jimmy is looking over everything like he’s trying to recall if he should remember it. Jimmy’s feet have walked this room, but does he sense it? Does he hear echoes of the things Sam’s whispered into his ears, his own lungs breathing shuddering moans along Sam’s jaw and into the dark?

Sam shrugs off his coat. “You want a drink?”

Jimmy doesn’t answer for a long time, still facing away from Sam, his eyes still scanning the ceiling. He takes a deep breath. “What d’you have?”

Sam takes a swig and then holds out his flask as Jimmy turns. “Jack.” There’s not much left in the flask when he passes it to him and it’s empty when Jimmy passes it back, fingers brushing against Sam’s.

Jimmy looks away, walks slowly past Sam and stops by the door where he sheds his trench coat and hangs it up on the hat stand. He breathes deep and then turns out the light.

Time is what this story is really made up of. Life is time. Time and blood and the unknown rushing away.

Castiel understood time and blood differently than Sam and, because of this, being an active participant in sex – momentary and physical – was too foreign a concept for Cas to initiate, though he quite bluntly came to Sam and told him he wanted it. Castiel had let Sam lead, let Sam reverently strip him half naked and sit him back on that motel room’s bathroom counter, had let go, dwindled his power down to something like a man’s long enough to let the air conditioner prickle his skin, long enough to open up to Sam and let him sink in.

That was the first time and Castiel was nearly completely silent through it all. Sam moved carefully inside him until he could feel Cas tensing with each stroke and until Sam couldn’t hold back any longer. Castiel had breathed fast and harsh and spilled between them at the last, collapsing on Sam with a shiver and held tight.

Later, in the car on the way to meet Dean for dinner, Castiel had watched the road, wide eyed.

“You okay?” Sam tried.

Castiel hadn’t answered at first, just put his hand gently to his own chest and, with a small exhale, tilted his head in a nod.

Sam had wanted to apologize then, though he couldn’t figure out what he was sorry for.

They found the cabin a month later while Dean and Sam were on a case that kept them in the area for a few weeks. Those days were silvery, filled with stolen glances and small thrills. The nights were windy and sweaty and a race to the peak of one great height after another. Sam was learning how to let himself have something that didn’t die, something holy he could touch without shame, something so pure that even this act didn’t tarnish it. Castiel was discovering worlds Sam couldn’t even begin to imagine. But Sam felt the revelation secondhand, greater than anything he’d ever known, when Castiel, pressed under him, sweaty and panting, opened his mouth and shouted for the first time because what they were doing together felt _good_.

The night Castiel asked Sam quietly if Sam would kiss him as they came down, while Sam was still catching his breath, still buried deep, was the night Sam fell in love with something he knew he would ultimately never have.

Sam caught Castiel praying one morning, hunched over Sam’s bed in their motel, utterly and unearthly still. Sam couldn’t say anything, couldn’t allow himself to break the sudden sanctity of the moment.

Cas was an angel. He was an angel. The word repeated itself in Sam’s head until he felt like a thief.

Castiel’s head rose and Sam saw the tension on Castiel’s features. He looked drained, exhausted, and when he turned slightly toward him, Sam saw sadness in the way his mouth tensed at the corners.

“What is it?” Sam managed to ask, the sense of holiness leaving the room as soon as he spoke.

Castiel stared off at nothing.

Dean had gotten a room with a waitress the night before, so it was just them here, which made it easier for Sam to reach out and say, “Come here.”

Cas rose and neared Sam, stood by the side of the bed and Sam was suddenly terrified Castiel was about to say something like goodbye. But he just shifted as if he couldn’t figure out how to get any closer. Sam scooted over and patted the space next to him and when Castiel sat down, Sam pulled him down to lie beside him, let Castiel figure out how to curl into him and be held. Sam wrapped his arms around Castiel and breathed deep, hoped it was enough to make things right, and knew deep down it wasn’t.

Only days later, Castiel was gone. No explanation. He was just gone, leaving Sam and a shaken, grief stricken man behind, a man that could never go home to the ones he loved.

Somehow Sam knew, deep down, Castiel was never coming back.

_I trusted you. I trusted you, you son of a bitch._

Sam drove out to the woods and shouted at the stars until he was hoarse. Until he sounded like someone was beating him. He waited for the car radio to buzz. He waited for thunder or a tree to fall or crack apart, limbs exploding in a shower of splinters, or the earth to shake.

The world stayed silent. Nothing. The only answer was the rush of wind through the trees and Sam tried hard to feel Castiel in it.

But he couldn’t feel anything save the empty ache in his gut of _alone_. _You are alone. He’s gone._

“Dean, please,” Sam whispered through the door. Dean was wrapped in a sheet from the waist down, bleary eyed and Sam could see the peaking line of tan skin and blond hair behind him sprawled on the bed. Sam hated her for a moment and rubbed his hand over his face, feeling fevered with lack of sleep. “Just try once. For me.”

Dean took in the state Sam was in, Sam felt him doing it while he studied the grit of the cement next to his soles. Thirteen days since Castiel left and Sam couldn’t coherently recall the last time he’d slept or even eaten something substantial – it had been days.

Dean’s face softened and he glanced over his shoulder, leaned out the door slightly and worried his lip, lowering his eyes and his voice as Sam leaned in, their heads almost touching.

“Cas,” Dean whispered into the small space between them and then put something different into the words, like they suddenly had wings and were going somewhere, stones skipped out to sea, “Cas, Sam needs to talk to you.” He paused and then continued, “We need you. Please.”

They waited, hovering together, waiting for that shift in atmosphere, the sound of fluttering or that voice behind one of them softly affirming everything just by saying their names.

A small breeze pushed away the moist heat of breath between them, left them with an answer by giving them none.

Nights went by where he lay in bed awake wondering, praying. _Where are you? Are you okay? Are you ever coming back? Why didn’t you say something before? Why won’t you answer me?_ Jimmy, in the bed next, tossing restlessly, looked over and met Sam’s eyes in the dark and Sam could see in the quiet hours of the morning Jimmy was waiting for oblivion to return – the angelic possession slipping back into him like a rental car. Sam was praying for the same and didn’t know whether his own sickening feeling of guilt was justified.

“I have a hard time,” Jimmy said the next day, groggily wavering over his half eaten toast, and the statement hung there unfinished between them. Jimmy looked to the side and didn’t flinch as Sam pushed a small piece of Jimmy’s hair back down. It helped that Jimmy kept his hair different. It helped more than Sam would have imagined. His eyes were still blue though and his voice was still rough when he was quiet.

Sam sat back and nodded. “Are you busy tonight?” He asked quietly.

Jimmy laughed bitterly and replied with kind sarcasm, “Completely booked, obviously.”

_Cas, anything._

It’s so dark Sam can’t get his eyes to adjust. There’s no city light this far out to shine in through the cabin’s windows, no moon to bathe them in soft blue. Pitch black holds them in an unsettling embrace in this room, unable to see a thing. But he can feel Jimmy’s breath as he moves into Sam’s space, and it’s not Castiel’s breath. He can feel the tentativeness in Jimmy’s touch as he reaches out and rests his hand on Sam’s arm and pulls himself closer, and that’s not Cas either. Jimmy doesn’t even smell like Cas. In the dark, he’s a stranger who’s asking without words. They’re without names in this place.

He’s a new kind of unknowable being when Sam wraps his arms around him. He’s smaller than Castiel ever felt in his arms and he’s shaking. He’s crying as Sam holds him tighter, the wind roaring through the trees until it sounds like a storm, until it’s deafening.

There is nothing but regret in the kiss Sam places on Jimmy’s head, and it is mirrored right back when Jimmy maneuvers his head and awkwardly finds Sam’s mouth above him, tears slipping between their lips. It feels perverse. It feels wrong to be here, to be trying to make this work somehow, but it doesn’t matter because this is what they have now. They are the left behind. This is what they have now he’s gone.

Human time and human blood. Fumbling buckles and skin and lies shouted in silence in the dark.

_Don’t come back then, you asshole, you left us like this, you left us to this and I loved you, I loved you and you knew. How could you leave when you knew that?_

There is quiet as the world comes back into focus, eyes finally adjusting to the dark and taking in vague shapes. Their nerves are tingling, bodies entwined and sweat painted and hurting as the mattress cradles them in musty sheets.

But the quiet - Sam can sense something has changed in it. He lies there, Jimmy curled against him and asleep, and it’s like a filter has been switched on the way everything is. Something has left, something that has been there all along. He tries to pinpoint it.

Sam’s ears are ringing and suddenly he knows. He feels it –

The wind outside has gone still.


End file.
